How are LDS adjacent groups funded? Scott Vance recently presented a paper at the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) in Salt Lake City on how LDS adjacent groups are funded directly and indirectly by the LDS Church. Check out our conversation…
Copyright © 2023
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Don’t miss our other conversations with Scott Vance: https://gospeltangents.com/people/scott-vance
Meet Scott Vance
Interview
GT 00:11 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have a good friend and longtime listener. Why don’t you go ahead and tell us who you are and why you’re in Salt Lake City?
Scott 00:50 My name is Scott Vance. I’m visiting Salt Lake for the SSSR Conference, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. They just had a conference here this last weekend. And I’m interested in Mormon studies, so I decided to attend.
GT 01:04 All right, well, not just attend, you presented a paper.
Scott 01:06 I did present a paper. Yes.
GT 01:07 And we want to talk about that paper. In fact you might have to lend me the slides.
Scott 01:11 Okay. I can do that.
GT 01:13 So tell us about your paper.
Scott 01:16 I discussed some concepts around support organizations of the Mormon Church that are not officially affiliated, but which have close ties to the Mormon Church. And I listed a number of organizations such as the More Good Foundation; such as FAIR, previously, FAIR Mormon, but now I think they’re just called FAIR; The Interpreter Magazine, The Widtsoe Foundation; and who else? Book of Mormon Central, of course. I talked a little bit about how each of these organization has some ties to the Church, both financial ties, in certain cases, in certain cases [the] use of facilities, in other cases, very close connections between different personnel. Some of these organizations rely heavily on personnel who are employed by BYU. And so, I talked about these ties and how these organizations support the mission of the Church, and why the Church chooses to keep these organizations outside of the main official body of the Church.
GT 02:18 Right. Now, before we jump into your presentation, let’s get your background. Where did you get your Bachelors, Masters, anything like that?
Scott 02:28 Sure. I grew up in Washington State. I went and did a Bachelor’s at BYU.
GT 02:33 Oh, you’re a Cougar. I didn’t know that.
Scott 02:35 I was a Cougar, indeed.
GT 02:36 Wow.
Scott 02:37 Yes. I studied there. I went there in Fall of 1992. After a year, I went on a mission to Japan. I served for two years in the Tokyo South mission.
GT 02:48 Konnichiwa (Hello or Good morning)
Scott 02:49 Konbanwa. (Hello or Good evening)
GT 02:50 O genki desu ka? (How are you?)
Scott 02:52 [Scott speaking fluent Japanese.]
GT 02:54 That’s too much Japanese. I just did everything [I know.] Sukiyaki. So, anyway, you went on a mission to Japan.
Scott 03:02 I did, yes.
GT 03:03 And then what happened?
Scott 03:04 After that, I returned to BYU. I graduated two years later in Physics, with a minor in Japanese and a minor in Math.
GT 03:13 Oh, no wonder we get along so well.
Scott 03:15 I know.
GT 03:16 I minored in Physics and majored in Math.
Scott 03:18 There you go! You just went to the wrong school!
GT 03:21 Well, I went to Weber State. People don’t know that’s the Lord’s University.
Scott 03:24 Well, my mom did, evidently, because she went to Weber, as well.
GT 03:27 Oh, wow. Your mom must be cool.
Scott 03:29 Yeah, she was. Unfortunately, she has passed at this point.
GT 03:31 Yeah, mine too. That’s terrible. Well, cool. So you majored in Physics?
Scott 03:38 I did.
GT 03:39 And I thought you were an engineer or something.
Scott 03:41 I am an engineer. After that, I went to Stanford University and got a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering.
GT 03:46 Oh, you’re a Cardinal.
Scott 03:49 Yes.
GT 03:50 When BYU plays Stanford, who do you root for? You don’t care?
Scott 03:54 I don’t care.
GT 03:57 All right. Well, I always say choose the red. {both laughing}
Scott 04:01 Fair enough.
GT 04:02 Okay, so Master’s at Stanford, okay.
Scott 04:06 And then I graduated from that program and went to work as a mechanical engineer. I worked as a mechanical engineer for about three years, and then decided to be an electrical engineer.
GT 04:16 Oh, wow.
Scott 04:17 So that’s what I’ve done since that time. I’ve worked as an electrical engineer, kind of picking up things as I go along. I do antenna design by day and Mormonism by night.
GT 04:26 Oh, wow. That’s awesome. And you’ve been a longtime listener. I should let our listeners know, Scott helped me get my first, second camera.
Scott 04:41 Back in the day.
GT 04:42 And he also, if you notice the Urim and Thummim, Scott–did you 3D print that or how does that work?
Scott 04:48 No, I did that/ I turned that on a lathe. So, I do watch making as my other pastime. And so I have a couple of lathes at home and so I turned the lenses and then, yeah.
GT 04:57 Wow. Very cool. Very cool. So, Scott is a long and loyal listener, and clearly a scholar of Mormonism, if he is presenting at a Scientific Conference of Religion. Right?
Scott 05:09 Somewhat. Everyone else there has a PhD in Sociology, but they let me present and I enjoy spending time with them and learning what I can.
GT 05:17 Yeah, it was super fun. It’s the first time–well, you were the one that invited me. It’s the first time I’ve attended, and [it’s] a very different group than MHA (Mormon History Association). But actually, there were a lot of people who knew me that I was surprised [about.] Jana Riess was there. Thomas Murphy was there. Quin Monson, who I hadn’t met before [was there.] So that was exciting.
Scott 05:38 Yeah, there was a strong contingent from BYU this year.
GT 05:40 Yeah, [it was a] super fun conference. We are the best source of Mormon science and history. And we’re going to be talking about both of those today.
Tracking Funding of LDS Adjacent Groups
GT 05:54 Tell us more about your presentation. How did you get involved in trying to research the More Good Foundation and Book of Mormon Central and these sorts of things?
Scott 06:01 Sure. It’s no secret. It’s been published for at least six or seven years that the LDS Foundation and various LDS affiliated groups, were donating some funds to the More Good Foundation. There’s public records, 990s, and people publish this online. I was interested in the topic, and I tried to explore that further. So, I went through and pulled all the financial records that were publicly available. Then I have listened to, not only your podcast, but also hundreds of hours of other people’s podcasts, trying to learn what I can about these organizations and how they interact with the Church, just to try to understand that relationship.
GT 06:40 Yeah. It’s interesting, because they claim to be independent, but they’re kind of funded by the Church, too. And so it’s kind of fuzzy?
Scott 06:50 It’s very fuzzy. There are some funding ties and those funding ties, it’s not 100% funded by the Church. In fact, in many cases, we find that the funding may make up only 20% of the total donations. The largest source of funding seems to come from private donors, mostly wealthy members of the LDS Church, mostly entrepreneurs, largely from the Provo/Orem area, people who have made it big and comfortably retired and have some extra cash and have an interest in helping to support the Mormon Church.
GT 07:22 Okay, So, you were talking about groups, and you said [that] some groups are just finally–you talked about the PTA.
Scott 07:32 Sure.
GT 07:32 Tell us more about that.
Scott 07:34 Sure, so the thesis of the paper is that within organizations, sometimes you have these, unofficial groups. An example, that I listed in the presentation, I listed two examples. One was the PTA, because the PTA is not a part of the school system. It’s not funded by the school system. It’s a group of volunteers that just decided that, hey, we’re going to help the school out. And we’re going to do that by supporting parties, by buying materials for the teachers. And so, there’s a relationship there, they’re clearly associated with the school, but they’re not officially a part of the school. And the depth of that relationship depends on which organization we’re talking about. So to list an infamous, really nasty example, there’s the Wagner group in Russia.
GT 08:22 Right.
Scott 08:23 And they are funded 100% by the Russian government. But, at least until recently, they claimed to be 100% independent. This allowed the Russian government to do some things which, from a Western perspective, we would say were nasty and awful, including military intervention in a number of countries, Sudan, Africa, Ukraine, obviously, as well as interfering with the 2016 presidential election in the United States. The first point I tried to make in the presentation is, there’s nothing inherent in having an outside group be good or bad. That group can perform any number of functions. And just because it’s outside of the main group, doesn’t mean that it’s nefarious. It can also be your local PTA, just a lot of people who are trying to help a cause that they’re devoted to.
GT 09:09 Okay. And so can we look at the More Good Foundation, Book of Mormon Central and some of these others as the same vein? Not Wagner.
Scott 09:21 Sure. So, not Wagner at all. In the case of all of these foundations associated with the Mormon Church, not all of them. Most of them, as far as I can tell, are started by members who are enthusiasts who want to help the Church. They generally know somebody in Church leadership or have some connection there in order to be able to maybe get an unofficial blessing from the Church and maybe get some direction. The level of direction seems to vary a lot by organization. Certain organizations, I considered the More Good Foundation, and Book of Mormon Central, as having really close ties to the LDS Church, and clearly accessed information. One thing that I didn’t bring out in the presentation, but which I do bring out in the written version, is that a group of people from Book of Mormon Central, were meeting with the Secretary of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. This is somebody pretty high up in the Church that was giving them feedback and direction. We know of at least one meeting where that occurred. So clearly, there’s some direction, some interaction there.
GT 10:34 Okay. So continue on.
Scott 10:38 Another example of the interaction, you have John Johnson at the More Good Foundation, who, according to Jesse Stay, who was interviewed on Mormon Stories, has a badge, which allows him to get into Church Office Building. And according to that interview, he uses it regularly. So, you have somebody who’s ostensibly not employed by the Church but happens to have a badge and can go in and out basically, at will. So, to me, this is just an example of direction and a closer association than you get based on the website.
GT 11:08 And just so you guys know, the LDS Church isn’t paying a dime to Gospel Tangents. (Chuckling)
Scott 11:15 You are missing out!
GT 11:16 I am missing out.
Scott 11:17 You don’t know the right people. {both chuckling}
GT 11:19 I am excited that I talk to lots of BYU professors and things like that. But, yeah, no monetary compensation at all. So, if you want to donate, come on.
Scott 11:31 You need to talk to the More Good Foundation.
GT 11:32 There you go. Well, and it’s funny, you mention that because, I did not realize until your presentation, that Saints Unscripted is owned by More Good Foundation?
Scott 11:45 It is the More Good Foundation. So basically, it is one of their activities. They fully support that. In fact, they have multiple YouTube channels. That’s only one of them. I didn’t list the other ones in the presentation. But there were a couple others.
GT 11:58 Oh, go ahead and share.
Scott 11:59 I don’t have those at the top of my head..
GT 12:01 Okay, that’s fine.
Scott 12:02 But they’re very well produced. I can update the presentation, add those in. But Saints Unscripted is 80 to 90% of their content. And then the other ones are relatively new channels that I’ve only seen appear within the last six to 12 months.
GT 12:13 Okay, Midnight Mormons?
Scott 12:16 Interesting you bring up Midnight Mormons. I have looked for a connection there. I have been unable to find a connection. I’m still completely uncertain with Midnight Mormons.
GT 12:25 I think they’ve changed their name, haven’t they?
Scott 12:27 They have changed their name to Ward Radio.
GT 12:31 Ward Radio, that sounds right.
Scott 12:32 Yeah. And they’re an interesting group, because originally they were funded by FAIR, which is funded in part by the Church, but mostly by volunteer funds coming from members. FAIR commissioned that group of individuals, essentially, to do the CES response videos you may recall from a few years back, that we’re up for about six months and then pulled from the internet. Evidently, there was some negative feedback from Salt Lake City that basically told FAIR, “No, these videos are not…”
GT 13:07 Well, and I think Midnight Mormons can be pretty crass. They use some non-church language, I will say that.
Scott 13:15 They do. And they kindly bleep that out, but they let people know that they’re edgy enough to swear, but then they bleep it out.
GT 13:22 Okay.
Scott 13:23 I think, anyway.
GT 13:24 So they’re trying to be edgy, then they were too edgy. And the Church was like, “No.”
Scott 13:29 So the videos with response to the CES Letter, I think were too antagonistic, too confrontational. I think they just left a bad taste in people’s mouth, similar to the way that some of the articles published in FARMS Review some years ago put a stain on that organization. So, I think the Church wanted to distance themselves from that. So FAIR, took those off the internet. Also, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Nemo the Mormon who’s a podcaster in the UK.
GT 13:59 I know of him.
Scott 14:02 He started in response to these CES Response Videos. That’s how he got his start. And I think his content was fairly compelling. And I think that was also another reason why people became embarrassed by the videos.
GT 14:16 Okay.
Scott 14:18 But yeah, so I know of no connection between Ward Radio and the LDS Church. I have not been able to show any financial connection or other connection.
GT 14:25 Okay. Do you think there is some under the table connection or no?
Scott 14:32 I have no idea. So, the thesis of my presentation is that the LDS Church is dealing with an issue, which many other organizations around the world, a lot of churches are dealing with right now, which is lower growth and struggling with retention of young people. So, in order to maintain the young people, one strategy is to entertain them. And Ward Radio does that. It provides entertainment and content, particularly for those who are a little bit more on the right, fundamentalist-ish, whatever you want to call that.
GT 15:09 Super orthodox?
Scott 15:10 Yeah.
GT 15:10 Because I don’t think they’re like,” Let’s go start polygamy tomorrow or anything.”
Scott 15:14 No, they’re not pro-polygamy, by any stretch of the imagination, but they are very much supportive of Trump and Trump causes and things. So, they’re politically fairly far right, as well, in my opinion.
Does Growth = Truth?
GT 15:26 Okay. Alright, well, continue on with your presentation.
Scott 15:33 Sure. So, the first thesis I present is that the LDS Church has conflated growth with truthfulness of the movement. I went ahead and quoted a few church leaders. And really you see a series of quotes between about 1979 and about 1983 coming from General Conference. You have about eight different times when growth is mentioned during that short time period. David Haight said, “The motivating force behind the sustaining and vigorous growth of the Church is that it is true.”
Scott 16:04 Spencer W. Kimball said, “In the decades of the 70s, we’ve seen great strides in the growth of the Church. The Lord continues to bless His Church, and this growth will accelerate in the future.” So depending on your belief structure, you could have seen that as a prophecy for continued Church growth. I remember, anecdotally, growing up in the 80s, attending church every Sunday, growth was a common topic over the pulpit and people talked about, “we’re growing so fast, and it’s because we are true that we are growing so fast.” So, if you conflate these two, that’s great, as long as you’re growing. But if you stop growing, then does the Church stop becoming true? That’s the risk. Right?
GT 16:46 Right.
Scott 16:47 And the last decade or so has seen slower growth. In some cases, some could argue negative growth in certain markets, I’m calling them markets. You can call them regions, areas of the world, whatever. But Europe, particularly, has been hard hit. Japan has been hard hit and the United States and Canada have been hit to some degree, as well as, Australia.
GT 17:09 Not Utah County though, I’ll tell you that.
Scott 17:11 No, in fact, separate topic, totally unrelated. But I see a reverse migration. People who have migrated out of Utah 10-20 years ago seem to be re migrating into Utah County.
GT 17:21 I can attest [to that] because it’s growing like crazy in Utah County.
Scott 17:27 Yeah.
GT 17:27 Except for Orem. Orem is kind of dying. But the rest of the county is growing.
Scott 17:31 Okay. Interesting.
GT 17:32 So, I don’t know why that is. I think Orem is just getting old. They don’t have enough young kids to replace the older population.
Scott 17:40 Okay.
GT 17:42 So we shouldn’t be conflating Church growth with the Church is true?
Scott 17:47 Well, I’m saying it’s dangerous to do that. Because if you do that, then you have to keep growing, or else you have to face the possibility of the Church not being true. And so, for the Church, it made perfect sense to do in the 80s, because we were growing and it was easy to sustain that narrative. But after the year 2000, when things become much tougher for churches, it’s much harder to sustain that narrative.
GT 18:11 Okay.
Scott 18:12 That being said, the Church has continued to maintain its growth narrative. Uchtdorf in 2014, David Bednar, most recently in 2023, at the Silicon Slopes Conference, has said that the Church is still growing.
GT 18:25 Just in Africa.
Scott 18:27 Well, yeah. I mean, they don’t say that. But yes, it’s growing in Africa. It’s growing in the Philippines, it’s probably growing in certain areas of Central and South America. It’s probably struggling in a lot of the other places that I mentioned.
GT 18:40 Okay. Keep going.
Scott 18:43 All right. So there were predictions in the 80s and the 90s. And a lot of these predictions said that the Church would grow by leaps and bounds as much as say, 30% per decade. And that would result in, according to one prediction, 157 million by the mid-21st century, huge numbers. And one was published in 1993 in the Ensign magazine, saying that by the year 2000 there would be 12 million and 35 million by 2020.
GT 19:19 So the 12 million was pretty close, wasn’t it?
Scott 19:22 Yeah, I believe so. I haven’t looked at the data.
GT 19:25 But the 35 million is way off.
Scott 19:27 Correct. And you see the slopes changing and inverting and the growth rates year by year going down.
GT 19:34 Because we’re at 16 or 17 million right now it seems like.
Scott 19:37 Seventeen, officially, and some change.
GT 19:41 Okay.
Scott 19:42 So roughly half.
GT 19:43 Half of what we should have been.
Scott 19:45 Of what we should have been three years ago, yes.
GT 19:48 Okay. What do you think the reason is for that?
Scott 19:51 [I think there are] a number of reasons. And there are people who have studied this topic more than I have. Declines in birth rates; if you have fewer kids, there’s fewer people coming to church. There’s been disaffiliation. There’s been increasing rates of disaffiliation or people leaving the Church, particularly among young people. They start losing faith around age 12, 14, 16.
GT 20:14 I think that Jana Riess has found that.
Scott 20:17 Yes. But they physically leave the movement generally when they move out of the house, because that’s when they have the opportunity to choose for themselves. So, around age 18, 20, 22, is when a lot of people leave the Church. Some of those, as researchers have noted, after they get married, they decide to come back, but it’s not a large enough number to affect the overall trends.
GT 20:40 Okay. I talked to Matt Bowman recently, and one of the things that he said was people weren’t leaving religion, per se, they were embracing tarot cards and New Age and that sort of thing. Do you agree with that?
Scott 21:00 I disagree based on some comments made at the conference we just attended, which is to say that people are doing tarot cards, yes. But that’s kind of like playing Monopoly or playing UNO. It’s more for entertainment. I don’t think there’s the same level of belief and spirituality involved when they’re pulling out the tarot cards. I could be wrong on this. There are scholars that know more on this topic than I do.
GT 21:26 Well, because I actually asked that question to Ryan Cragun. And do you remember his answer?
Scott 21:30 His answer is what I paraphrased. Yeah, so I’m quoting Ryan Cragun, because he was a little stronger.
GT 21:34 Yeah, he was a little stronger. He was like, yeah, that’s not really true.
Scott 21:39 He’s studied this topic in far greater depth than I have. And I understand he’s maybe even presented to the Church on this topic.
GT 21:48 Oh, he did?
Scott 21:49 That’s my understanding. I will let him go into that if he so chooses.
GT 21:53 I came to his presentation late. So, I missed that part. But I was there for the Q&A. So that was pretty interesting. While we’re on the topic of disaffiliation, because there was that session that was on that very topic, and it wasn’t necessarily LDS related. But I also asked Matt Bowman, how do we get more butts in the seats? Do you have an answer for that question?
Scott 22:20 I can answer it. Am I correct? Who knows? But I can throw out some ideas.
GT 22:25 Okay.
Scott 22:27 From what I understand, both from personal experience and from the literature, I think that social engagement is very important. And I think that the decrease in the number of pageants, decrease in the roadshows, the decrease in even the fundraising events—when I was a kid, the Relief Society had to raise their own funds. And they held a bazaar every year. It was awesome. We had amazing doughnuts. There were quilt raffles, fishing for the kids, the whole nine yards. That was just a fun way to come together as a community. Granted, it put a lot of stress and strain on members in certain ways. But I think people would react positively to more of that. I know I have some kids who are not seriously engaged with the Church. But if there’s a fun activity, they’re there. I think by building community more, the Church would be more successful in retention.
{End of Part 1}
Copyright © 2023
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:46 — 22.7MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Email | | More
